Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 302: This is not their land to give. It is our land to keep.
The train pulled into Karlsbad.
Konrad Henlein stepped onto the platform to a small crowd of supporters, young men holding banners with clean fonts and smiling faces.
A few chanted his name.
One handed him a bouquet of white flowers.
He accepted it without emotion.
German-speaking children whispered words they’d been taught carefully by their parents.
"Autonomy." "Oppression." "Heritage."
Words that sat heavy on small tongues.
A girl, no older than six, whispered to her brother. "Papa says we have to be quiet now."*
The brother, older, wiser in the way kids get when things turn ugly, muttered back.
"Not forever."
Henlein made his way to the local town hall where chairs had been arranged for the speech.
Flags were draped behind the podium both the Sudeten German Party’s and, prominently, the swastika.
He stepped.
The room went still.
"My brothers and sisters," he began, "you know why I am here."
A soft murmur passed through the room.
"I do not come today as a separatist. I do not come as a traitor to peace. I come as a voice your voice denied for too long."
People nodded, slowly at first, then with more resolve.
Henlein continued, his tone calm.
"For nearly twenty years, our language has been tolerated but never respected. Our identity has been acknowledged but never embraced. Our communities have been contained politically, culturally, and economically. This is not coexistence. This is subjugation."
In the front row, a factory foreman’s eyes welled.
His son had been expelled from school for refusing to recite the Czech anthem.
"We do not seek violence," Henlein went on. "But we will not be silent. The world is watching. And if Czechoslovakia is truly a democracy let it prove it now. Autonomy is not rebellion. It is dignity."
Applause broke out.
Henlein didn’t smile.
He wasn’t finished.
"I tell you this now we will not rest until our children speak freely, our courts rule fairly, and our border is no longer a line of fear, but a bridge of equality. This is not their land to give. It is our land to keep."
He stepped down to thunderous applause.
Outside, the same words were printed across pamphlets and shouted in cafés.
Not their land to give.
Our land to keep.
Back in Prague, Edvard Beneš read the transcript with silent fury.
His brow was drawn tight, his hands cold.
He passed the papers across his desk to Prime Minister Hodža. "He’s not negotiating. He’s setting conditions for collapse."
Hodža nodded. "And Hitler is behind every word."
Defense Minister Krejčí entered moments later, his uniform crisp despite the long hours.
He placed new intelligence on the desk.
"Reports from the border. Czech-language road signs vandalized. German youths in Sudeten towns are organizing patrols. No direct violence yet, but the tone is shifting."
"And the world?" asked Beneš.
Krejčí frowned. "Britain urges restraint. France has gone quiet. And Germany... as expected, claims it’s an internal matter."
Beneš rubbed his temples. "Of course they do."
Across the border in Berlin, Hitler sat in a private room with Goebbels and Ribbentrop.
A fire cracked in the hearth, but no one looked at it.
"He did well," Goebbels said, setting down the Karlsbad speech notes. "Right tone. Not too aggressive, but strong."
Hitler nodded. "The Sudeten issue is now alive. Let it spread."
Ribbentrop, ever more direct, asked, "When do we escalate?"
"Not yet," Hitler said. "First, we let them try to appease. They will offer meaningless reforms. We must make those reforms look weak. Unworthy. Then we show the world that Czech democracy is a lie."
Back in Karlsbad, Henlein met with his regional commanders in a candlelit room above a bakery.
"The Czechs will come back with proposals," he said. "Language rights. Maybe local councils."
One man, thin and sharp-eyed, asked, "Do we accept any of it?"
Henlein shook his head. "Not unless Berlin approves. Until then, we delay, demand, and delay again."
Outside, a group of young men gathered in the square.
They lit torches not in celebration, but in imitation.
They had seen similar parades across the border.
They chanted, "Autonomy! Freedom! One people!"
In Prague, Beneš held an emergency cabinet meeting.
Interior Minister Jan Černý slammed the table. "We must act! Mobilize garrisons. Ban Henlein’s party. This is sedition."
Krejčí spoke calmly. "And provoke Berlin? If we move too early, they will say we are repressing Germans."
Foreign Minister Krofta was pale. "I spoke with our ambassador in Paris. The French government is how do I put it. They may not intervene this time. Moreau has given no clear orders on intervention as he is still busy in resurrection of Spain while the ministers under him are useless and won’t do anything without his orders. Or rather no one in France will do anything without Moreau orders."
"They promised," said Černý.
"Promises die in fog," Krofta replied bitterly.
Beneš stood. "We do not move first. We gather information. We prepare quietly. But we do not panic. That is exactly what they want."
Outside the castle, protests broke out small but growing.
Czech nationalists clashed with Sudeten demonstrators in several towns.
At a newsstand in Pilsen, a man grabbed a newspaper from another’s hands and tore it apart, shouting, "This is propaganda!"
A nearby police officer separated them, but the message was clear.
The border wasn’t the only line breaking.
It was happening within the people now.
Henlein, reading headlines in Karlsbad, felt the ground moving beneath him.
He had stirred something deeper than just policy.
Identity, fear, loyalty.
And he was not sure he could control it anymore.
He sent a coded message back to Berlin.
"Fire is lit. Request further instruction. Will not last without direction."
In Berlin, Hitler read it and smiled.
"Let him sweat," he said to Goebbels. "He thinks he’s the match. But we are the flame."
Meanwhile, Beneš drafted a speech of his own.
He sat in a quiet room with only a lamp, a pencil.
He wrote.
"To be Czech is not to be against Germany. To defend our land is not to reject peace. But let no one mistake our calm for consent, nor our patience for fear. This republic was born from ashes. It will not return to them without a fight."
He placed the pencil down.
